


Fire Meet Gasoline

by thethirdact



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4538058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethirdact/pseuds/thethirdact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ambulance EMT Ian Gallagher meets Southside native Mickey Milkovich when the latter's father is picked up with a gunshot wound, the source of which Mickey claims to not know. But there is more to this incident and Ian - by no pre-meditated inclination - slowly chips away at the chilly barrier that protects the Milkovich children from the rest of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any inaccuracies concerning Ian's job/hospital goings-on. Please, enjoy.

" Start by pulling him out of the fire and

hoping that he will forget the smell. "

\- Caitlyn Siehl

 

 

The girl had an ear ache and still they put her on a stretcher and wheeled her into the ambulance. She clung to a stuffed bear and cried quietly. The bear's ears were chewed and frayed. How appropriate, Ian thought, as he smiled at her.

“We're just going to the hospital to see the doctor,” said the girl's father. He had a jacket thrown over his plaid pajamas. His bald spot shone with sweat despite the cold. The girl nodded and cried and watched the colors of the road dance across the cabinets built into the ambulance's walls. Bottles and glasses shook like they always did. Ian was used to the rhythm, and the wail of the sirens. It must have scared her, though.

He was warm in his thick uniform. His shift was nearly over, though he was supposed to have been off already. This girl should be the last, along with her bear and her stooped father. He smoothed back her hair and hummed something sweet.

“Almost there,” Ian said. “You'll be good in no time.”

The girl's smile was as watery as her father's.

After, while the girl and her father, both in slippers, waited their turns in the emergency room, Ian sat on the lip of the ambulance's back doors running his hands over his face. The chill kept him awake, along with the 5-hour-energy he'd chugged two hours back. When they'd picked up the old lady with the second heart attack. Eejay climbed out of the cab and joined him.

“Long fucking night,” he said, blowing air onto his hands. He was older than Ian, a veteran with a lined face. He was never tired, only disgruntled every now and again.

“Yeah,” Ian said.

“What d'you think, gunshot or stabbing?” Eejay scratched his stubble thoughtfully.

Ian sighed and his breath came out in a cloud. “Both."

“Oh, there's a thought.”

Ian smiled. It was nearly two in the morning. Enough time for one more call, though neither of them wanted it. But what would it be –

The walkies at Eejay's and Ian's shoulders sputtered to life as a woman's voice came through. Gunshot victim, Southside.

“There you go,” Ian said as he climbed into the cab with Eejay. They gunned it as Ian replied to dispatch.

Ian liked being an EMT. He liked the long hours and the feeling that he was helping in some capacity. He was good at dealing with the sick people, the victims and the losers, the dying ones. He could hold hands and then just as easily wheel a corpse into the morgue when CPR didn't do the trick. Sometimes he thought he was too far gone, numb to the bone, but he just knew how to detach. He had to.

The call took them to a ragged house in a neighborhood planted under the train, the colors of rust and bone under the cover of dark. Ian unfurled the stretcher and followed Eejay up the steps. A pale kid with dark hair met them at the door, which was already hanging open.

“I just got here,” he said. His voice was gruff, tight with emotion. Upon further inspection, Ian saw that he wasn't as young as he'd thought. Maybe twenty; but he had the cadence of an indignant teenager.

“Someone's been shot,” Eejay said. He always took the lead when he and Ian were paired together.

“Asshole across the street called the cops. I don't know what happened, I wasn't here. I just got back from work.” The guy shook his head and brought them through into the kitchen where a hefty guy was face-down on the floor. A puddle of blood kept him glued to the ground. Ian knelt down, gloves on, found the wound in his torso. The bullet hadn't found its way out. Ian's eyes swept over the man's tattoos and his disposition soured. Nazi imagery faded with the poor quality of its application but still distinguishable. No wonder someone shot him.

“Got a pulse. Let's get him up.” Ian grabbed the stretcher.

“What's his name?” Eejay asked the kid.

“Milkovich. Terry Milkovich. He's my dad,” he said. “You think he'll live?”

Ian registered that the question didn't come with the frightened tone he was so used to hearing. Eejay, though, was all business, “We'll do our best. Let's bring him down. Ian.”

They got him down the front steps and snapped the wheels up to bring him into the back, strapped an oxygen mask onto the guy's unshaved face. He breathed shallow, mouth hanging open. He smelled like piss and beer.

“Are you riding with him?” Ian asked the kid. He stood out in the cold, coat enormous on his small frame. His eyes – very clear eyes – swept from Ian to his father's immobile body. They didn't have time for this; Terry Milkovich needed surgery. Ian barked, “Yes or no?”

The kid let out an aggravated sigh and climbed aboard. The sirens screamed once more as they sped off and the rhythm of the cabinet's contents began. Terry Milkovich was stable for now, the monitor beeping as it should. Ian checked vitals and once he was satisfied turned to the guy he was stuck with in the ambulance. Clear eyes, he thought again. Eyes that watched the jump of the heart rate monitor. But also, in the dim light, he saw a scabbed-over cut above his eye. The yellowing bruise of a black eye and a cut on his lip.

“What's your name?” Ian asked.

The guy looked over, like he was surprised the silence could be broken so easily. “Mickey,” he grunted out.

“He'll be okay,” Ian said. It's what people wanted to hear.

Mickey scoffed. “Fuck do you know?” He brushed a hand through his hair. Ian caught the tattoos faded into his fingers. The smell of beer and sweat radiated off of the guy, too. But Ian was never put off by a facade like Mickey's. The swastika tattoo on his father's flabby torso didn't scare him either, though it did make him care less about whether he lived or died. Ian had treated gang members and addicts who threatened him and his coworkers with blades and loaded guns. This middle-aged white man and his smaller-than-average son didn't faze him.

Ian tried a different subject. Maybe he was just tired and speaking without thinking, maybe he just wanted to know more about this random shooting. “Do you know who shot your father, Mickey?”

“No, I don't fucking know who shot him. Whoever did is a fucking idiot who's gonna die earlier than God intended,” he bit out. He clung to the seat as the ambulance accelerated through an intersection. “Nobody fucks with a Milkovich and lives to brag about it.”

Ian's mouth closed. He understood where this guy was coming from. How many times had he had to hear that Gallaghers stuck together. Gallaghers didn't take shit from anyone. But he banished the thoughts.

“He's going to surgery. It'll be hours --” Ian rattled off the details automatically.

“He doesn't have insurance. How's he supposed to pay for this shit?”

“You can talk to someone inside. And you'll have to talk to the cops.”

“What?” Mickey looked at him, those clear eyes pinched with annoyance. “What fucking cops?”

“He was shot. The police are involved whenever there's a gunshot victim. It's the policy.”

Mickey ground his bottom lip between his teeth. They pulled up at the hospital and Eejay opened the back doors, and the guys pulled Terry Milkovich and his stretcher into the hospital. Mickey Milkovich trailed behind, fidgeting with his phone. If Ian had been paying more attention, he would have seen those pale fingers shaking.

 

–

 

Ian said good night to the overnight nurse. He gave her the last of his second 5-hour-energy, which she took gratefully. 

“I'll see you tomorrow, Ian. Sleep tight.” She was a nice woman, her scrubs printed with Betty Boops, but she was barking up the wrong tree. Ian just didn't have the heart to tell her.

He changed in the locker room, happy to feel the soft worn-in texture of his favorite sweater and the weathered stretch of his jeans. He knew that as soon as he was home, he'd pass out fully dressed. He was up at the ass-crack of dawn in only a handful of hours for his next shift.

Eejay patted Ian's shoulder on his way out. “Have a good one, Ian,” he said.

“You, too, Eejay,” Ian mumbled around a yawn. He shouldered his bag and left.

The cold air outside the emergency room was a welcome slap to his face. Ian found his cigarettes in his pocket and lit up on the way to his car. That first drag was sinfully sweet enough to put a smile on Ian's face. He breathed out and watched the chill air suck away the cloud.

The thin scratch of another lighter flickering near him made Ian look to his left. Mickey Milkovich was struggling to light his own cigarette. His lighter wasn't cooperating.

“Piece of fucking shit,” Mickey mumbled angrily at the useless spark-spark-spark. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Ian approached him, unsure even as he walked of what he was doing. Mickey had made it clear in the ambulance that he wasn't a big talker. And the people Ian saw day in and day out were dealing with so much shit that he wouldn't normally try to start a conversation with one of them. But he had a lighter and that was what Mickey needed.

“You can't smoke this close to the door,” Ian said.

Mickey looked up to him, a crease between his eyebrows. “Who the fuck cares?”

Ian nodded to the security cameras perched over the automatic doors. Mickey promptly raised his eyebrows and gave the cameras the finger. “Fuck off,” he mumbled after and kept trying to light his cigarette.

“The no-smoke zone actually ends,” Ian said and took a step and a half forward. He put his foot down on the asphalt and drew an invisible line. “Right here.”

Mickey was only a foot away, in the shadow of the North medical wing. “And I can give you a light,” he added, holding up his own cigarette.

Mickey scowled at him, drew his eyes up and down Ian's body like he was checking for weapons. Eventually though he walked over and took Ian's outstretched cigarette, brushing Ian's cold fingers as he did. He puffed on his cigarette, holding the two together, and its end ignited.

He didn't thank Ian as he passed his cigarette back. They smoked together in silence, lingering on the imaginary line Ian had drawn. At one point, Mickey hacked and spit wetly onto the ground. Ian almost smiled. It was like a cat marking its territory.

The sound of a vibrating phone punctured the silence and Mickey reached into his pocket. “Hey,” he said when he answered. He spoke urgently, anxious once more. The emotion pervaded his voice like the smoke in the night air. It amazed Ian how his inflection could change so rapidly. “No, I don't know. I don't fucking know, Mandy. Shit. Yeah, I'm staying until one of these smarmy fuckers tells me something. You'll know when I know. Yeah.” He hung up, sucking on his cigarette.

Ian realized that he had infringed on what was probably an important and emotional phone call regarding Mickey's wounded father and made to leave. He shouldered his bag more securely and turned to walk away.

“Hey,” he heard from behind him.

Ian half-turned. Mickey looked at him.

“What do you think are his chances?”

“I'm not a doctor,” Ian was quick to point out.

“Yeah, you're an actual fucking person.”

Ian breathed a small laugh. “You've seen people get shot before?” He already knew that Mickey would say yes. Ian could smell that life on him, from the injuries on his face to the tattoos to the confident don't-fuck-with-me way that he walked.

Mickey nodded. Of course.

“Did it look bad to you? Your dad?”

Mickey didn't answer. He'd seen how pale his father's face was, and the pool of blood on the kitchen floor. The man didn't move.

“Stop dancing around the fucking question, asshole.”

“He was shot in the stomach. Chances of infection are higher than if he were shot in the arm or leg or even in the chest.” Ian shrugged. “I can't give you an answer. What did the surgeon tell you?”

“Fuck all. Motherfucker doesn't give a shit about somebody who can't pay for this shit.” He finished off his cigarette and crushed the stub under his boot.

Ian didn't know what to say. Mickey was jittery, wound-up, and Ian felt for him. So he said, while he knew that he was tired and had to sleep and just wanted to crawl into bed, “Do you want some coffee or something?”

And when Mickey looked at him like he was crazy – like he'd done only less than an hour earlier, when Ian first spoke to him – Ian continued, “There's a 24-hour place on the second floor. They have snacks and shit, pretty cheap.”

What surprised Ian even more than the fact that he had said anything in the first place was Mickey's coarse low reply of, “Yeah, sure.”

 

–

 

They drank on the floor, against the wall. Mickey had a large cup of coffee and a banana nut muffin. Ian drank water. He'd need to sleep, couldn't do coffee, which is what he explained when Mickey asked.

“How long's one of these shifts last?” He asked around a mouthful of muffin.

“It varies. I'll work 10- or 12-hour shifts a lot. Sometimes 24-hours if they're short-handed.”

“Fuck,” he said. “When the fuck do you have time for a life?”

“I don't.” Ian smiled and sipped his water. “I like the hours. I've been working night-shifts for years, I'm used to it.”

Mickey scoffed and swallowed. “'For years.' Like you're some old-fucking-man. Where else you worked, college boy?”

“Community college boy,” Ian corrected. “I was a dancer in Boystown.”

Mickey looked at him and Ian met his gaze. He was used to this stunted look, the embarrassed apology, what have you. But then he registered that Mickey apparently came from a criminal history, his father wore permanent white supremacy marks on his body, he swore up and down and looked ready to do physical damage. Ian had been in a few scraps with homophobic assholes in his time. He didn't want to stop this conversation short but he wasn't about to lie. He was gay. This was his life.

“What?” Ian said finally. “You think girls are the only ones who dance naked to pay their way through school?”

Mickey shook his head and took another huge bite of his muffin. “Fuckin faggots,” Ian heard him mumble.

“You wanna fight about it?”

Mickey snorted. “Fuck you, pansy shit. You'd be dead in a minute.”

“Try me.”

Ian stood up, went to the other wall and leaned against it. He put his hands up, welcoming the challenge. Mickey just scoffed and flipped him off. “Fuck off, tough guy. I'm not wasting my energy on your ginger ass.”

Ian almost made a snarky comment about his ginger ass but thought against it. He could have sworn he'd seen Mickey blush though.

“Wouldn't be my first fag bash.” Ian finished his water.

“Not mine either,” Mickey looked up at him.

Ian almost laughed. Mickey noticed and narrowed his eyes. “Fuck's so funny about that?”

“You know there are two definitions for fag bash? The one you're thinking of is the obvious: fucking up a gay guy for no reason. The one I meant: a good gay fuckin' party with some stylish homosexuals.” Ian smiled wide. He was flirting with danger here but he couldn't make himself care.

Mickey stayed on the floor, at the disadvantage. Ian was already taller than him. They must have weighed the same amount, Mickey being bulkier. Mickey lifted himself off of the floor and just started walking away. He tossed his trash and kept going. Ian went after him. He fell into step next to Mickey, in silence. He could see the way Mickey's jaw was now set in a hard line. His mouth was turned down, that crease present on his forehead again. He looked older. He could see the remnants of that black eye again, under the harsh lights in the hall.

Suddenly, Mickey's arm shot out and grabbed Ian by his collar. Pressed him back hard against the wall, sharp enough to make him wince. Mickey held him there, surprisingly strong considering how Ian had to look down at him. Mickey glared at him and the fear of Ian's youth returned to him. The feel of a rib breaking under some asshole kid's steel-toed boot rushed back to his mind. His heart pumped loudly in his ears.

“Don't you fucking laugh at me,” Mickey got out, each word a force not to be questioned. “I'll fucking kill you.”

Ian only looked back at him. Mickey licked the cut on his bottom lip and closed his mouth. Ian was mightily transfixed by that small gesture. He couldn't have said why. He swallowed and he could see Mickey's eyes flicker to the movement in his throat. “Okay,” Ian said simply.

Mickey let go of him and kept walking, like nothing had happened.

 

–

 

Ian gave Mickey a head start to the door. He'd needed that moment to clear his head and slow down his beating heart. He needed another cigarette. He saw Mickey sitting in the waiting room when he walked by but didn't look him in the eye. He looked at the floor, counting his steps to the door. But then he heard the surgeon – a middle-aged woman, with a haircut and dye job that cost her more than Ian's monthly rent – approach Mickey, saying, “Are you Terry Milkovich's son?”

Ian slowed his pace to eavesdrop.

“Yeah,” Mickey said, as he stood.

“Well, he's out of surgery and in recovery. We got the bullet out and stitched him up. Now there is still a chance of infection but we will monitor any and all changes. He's lucky. If the bullet had been off by less than an inch in any direction, he wouldn't have made it.” She let her hair down, brilliant strokes of artificial sunshine. “He's not conscious but if you want to see him -”

“He didn't die?” Mickey asked. His voice was so hollow. Ian almost turned around, gave up his rouse.

The surgeon didn't get a chance to respond to that question. While Mickey stared without seeing at the wall, a police officer strolled in from the corridor. “Mickey Milkovich?” She asked and he looked up, now on guard.

“Yeah?” The emptiness was gone, replaced by a gruff annoyance.

“Officer Alves,” she pulled out a pad and pen. “I need to ask you some questions about tonight.”

 


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say thanks to the people who are reading this. I've never written fanfiction for Shameless before and honestly didn't expect anyone to be interested. So thanks. :)

" In my left hand there is the familiar.

In my left hand, there's the great unknown. "

\- Bastille

 

Ian went home.

The arrival of the police officer set the room on edge and as he walked through the automatic doors, he could hear Mickey begin to raise his voice. He'd already infringed on Mickey's time, whether or not he had liked it. Ian couldn't be sure with that one.

Ian got into his car and willed his eyes to stay open for just a little longer. He didn't live far from the hospital. Home was a small two-bedroom apartment bordered by five churches and two pizza joints. The house had seen better days but his split of the rent was easy to manage, and none of the tenants in the building were particularly troubling or obnoxious. Neither he nor his roommate were around to complain much anyway.

Ian unlocked the front door but left the lights off. His roommate was a girl named Beth who'd been in a couple of Ian's classes when he attended Malcolm X. She was studious and mousy, not one to start a conversation with a stranger. But she and Ian went outside to smoke when their teachers gave them breaks in long classes and they'd exchange small talk while they indulged in their shared filthy habit. She mentioned she needed a new roommate after her previous one had moved in with her boyfriend. Ian happily told her that he was interested, forgoing the details of his last living arrangements. He and Beth had been living together for about a year with no conflict. He worked an intense schedule, while Beth went to school full-time and worked 40-hour weeks at a nursing home.

Her one stipulation was that he not have overnight house guests. Ian agreed. He didn't want to have overnight house guests.

He stopped in the bathroom, wincing at the harsh light, and washed his face. He brushed his teeth and popped his pills with a swallow of water from the faucet. His face pinched as he felt them go down and he felt a shiver travel through him. He never got over it, no matter how many times. He hid his pills in an empty face wash container. Beth didn't need to know that he had this disorder. It didn't affect him like it used to. Sure, he felt down sometimes and needed to take a day or two to level out, or he'd be unable to sleep and go out to clubs he used to frequent just to use up the energy. But he was getting better.

And then he fell into bed. He didn't bother to remove any of his clothes. It was far too cold for that; he wrapped his thickest blanket around himself and thought that he would fall asleep immediately. That was how it went. Instead, he thought about that last ride of the night. He thought about Mickey Milkovich and his angry stubborn face and the tattoos on his fingers. The strength in those fingers when he pushed Ian against the wall. Ian couldn't help but to think about how close his face had been. Mickey was so pale, he could have seen the blood moving under his skin. His eyes were so clear.

Ian snuggled closer into his pillow, thinking about how he thought he knew what flirting looked like. Now he wasn't so sure.

 

–

 

Mickey walked home. He was shaking. He blamed it on the cold. Fuck, it was the cold. The cold and that goddamn police officer.

It was nearing four in the morning. No bus or train ran so late. He should have thought about his commute back from the hospital before he climbed into the ambulance, not that his brain had been functioning particularly well at that point. It would have looked worse if he hadn't gone to the hospital with Terry. It would have looked like he didn't care.

Mickey didn't know if any of his brothers would be awake for him to ask for a ride. Joey and Tony scattered after the gun went off, out the back door and down the alley like the cops were already after them. Iggy was working, he might not have even known what happened. Mandy, though, Mickey knew that she wouldn't sleep tonight.

“What happened?” Her voice was higher than normal, tremulous, over the phone. He could imagine her chewing her bottom lip, curling a piece of dark hair between her fingers.

He'd just left the hospital when he called her. “He's alive,” Mickey started with. “Doc says his chances are still iffy, infection or some bullshit. His blood-alcohol was off the fuckin' charts. I don't know, I don't know what's gonna happen in the next couple'a days.”

“Mickey, if he wakes up -”

“I know.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where are you?”

“Aunt Rach's. I told her Terry's on a bender, she didn't ask questions.” She went quiet. Mandy didn't cry, not even when they were kids. She would coil up and hug her stomach, separate herself from the boys and be silent. Mickey wished that he was like her in that way.

Mickey had to tell her so he said, “I had to talk to the cops.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Not a lot. Bitch wanted more than I was gonna give. I said I didn't know what happened. I got home from work and he was lying on the floor, no idea who could'a done it. Bitch asked if he had any enemies. Yeah, half the fuckin' south side. Jesus.” He took a breath and switched the phone to his other hand. His fingers were starting to go numb.

“What about the gun?”

“What about it?” Mickey said back. “How many guns we got in that house?”

“Mickey, police can't come to our fucking house. They'd arrest all of us.”

“Hey, there's not gonna be any fucking cops.” He'd said the same to the Officer Alves. Unless they had a warrant, which they wouldn't, they weren't stepping foot into his house. She didn't press him on the subject. She was as tired as he was and in no mood to go toe to toe with an angry piece of work like Mickey. He could tell from her expression, she knew there were better things that she could spend her time on rather than this low-class shooting. In her eyes, Terry Milkovich deserved it. Mickey didn't disagree.

“Don't – don't worry about it, Mandy. Stay there for as long as she lets you. Don't come home.”

“Okay.”

“What did you do with the gun?” He asked, after looking over his shoulder. Not like anyone would be walking around this late.

“I wiped it down and threw it in the lake. It's gone.”

“Good.”

 

–

 

He couldn't feel his feet in his boots. The cold cut him to the bone. And still, he walked. Mickey shoved his nose down into the weave of his heavy scarf, fought the snots he could feel dripping there. What he wouldn't give for a hot shower, goddamn.

And, unbidden, that goddamn ginger popped into his head. Mickey didn't even know his name. But, wait... yeah, he'd heard the older guy call him Ian. Ian the Ginger, who smoked and swore and asked Mickey if he wanted to fight. Right there in the hospital corridor. Mickey appreciated that attitude, even as he rebelled against what he knew he should be thinking. Ian was tall and lean and sturdy, probably good in a scrap. Mickey knew he could take him in a fight. He was all fire, all rage, he'd been boiling beneath the surface since he was a kid.

He had to be the brutal one, relentless to make up for his short stature. He could fight with his brothers and cousins, all older and bigger than him. He had to be able to fend off his dad when Terry was in a foul mood. Mickey tongued the tear in his lip at that thought, and again thought of Ian.

He'd gotten too close but all he wanted was a closer look. He wondered if Ian knew. Could he feel it? Ian had looked at Mickey in a way that disarmed him. Where were his lies? He needed them, he could feel his heart pounding outside of his control without them.

Mickey knew what he was – who he was – but no one else did. No one could know. He was too ashamed to tell his siblings, even his sister, and even more scared that they would let it slip to his father. Terry Milkovich's son wasn't queer. He would kill Mickey before he let him live his life as a faggot.

Unless Mickey killed him first, said a small voice at the back of his mind. He dismissed it. He was too tired.

“Fuck,” Mickey said to himself, shaking his head. He couldn't get caught up in a childish crush right now. Not now, not ever. He was twenty-one, not twelve.

 

–

 

The door to the house was open. They didn't lock it. Why would they?

Mickey walked through to the kitchen and saw the pool of blood on the floor, smudged with footprints and the marks of where they lifted his father up onto the stretcher. Crimson-brown lines went out the door, from the wheels on the gurney. Glass was broken on the table, a beer bottle still open and half-full. Flies picked over a pot of hamburger helper on the stove, congealed to a mushy mess.

Mickey went past it. He stripped off his clothes and fell into bed. A shower could wait. The blood could wait. He needed the sweet release of dreamless sleep.

 


End file.
